


The Blue Planet

by aurilly



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Awkward Sexual Situations, First Time, Friends to Lovers, IN SPACE!, M/M, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Partners to Lovers, Pining, Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 09:30:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19971820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly/pseuds/aurilly
Summary: Bucky gets hit with sex pollen while fighting space monsters with Loki.Unfortunately, Loki doesn't immediately realize that's what's happening.





	The Blue Planet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Unforgotten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforgotten/gifts).



"This isn't working," Barnes observed as he rested his hands on his thighs and caught his breath. 

"When, exactly, did you deduce that?" Loki sarcastically shot back. But he was panting, too. 

"Around the time it bent your knives with its foot." Barnes must have known Loki had meant the question rhetorically, and had answered simply to be annoying.

They had retreated momentarily to a space between two boulders after their latest assault had resulted in Barnes successfully cutting off their opponent's arms while Loki failed to stab through the places whence its heads emerged.

"You gonna do that thing with the air particles again?" Barnes asked hopefully, entirely too joyfully for the heat of battle. But he'd always been like that—depressingly nonchalant about his own skin, and always looking for something to distract him from the fact that he was fighting. Loki's magic had become his favorite and most constant source of distraction over years of partnering together on missions. Since their first project, he'd evinced for it the most endearing enthusiasm. Awed, amused, amazed, and almost fond was a good look on Barnes, and Loki enjoyed producing displays in order to see more of it. 

Other than Thor, Barnes was the closest Loki had ever had to a constant, regular companion. Partner. Friend, though Loki was loath to say the word aloud. And now that Thor was gone, along with half the universe, he was the only one Loki had. But while Loki had eventually learned that Thor had felt the same medley of appreciative emotions about Loki, he had rarely, and too late, shown them so plainly as Barnes did.

The creature charged again, forcing Loki to distract it with the sparkling air particles, for serious reasons, not simply to impress Barnes.

Peevishly, Loki reminded himself to find scathing words with which to express his displeasure the next time he saw Danvers. She had described this mission as a simple rescue operation. Deliver a planet's local population from the creature that had been killing them in increasing numbers. Apparently, they had kept it at bay for thousands of years, through a system of mandatory military training and constantly reinforced walls. However, with so many suddenly dead, they could not longer effectively man the walls. Far from Thanos's promised 'balance', the Snap had disproportionately taken their strong young warriors, leaving the remaining population unable to defend themselves.

The mission had seemed simple enough, until Loki and Barnes had arrived and discovered that the underwhelmingly described 'creature' was in actuality an eldritch abomination hitherto heard of only in the apparently not-so-tall tales that Frigga had read to Thor and Loki as children.

The thing was disgusting. Sporting two heads—one of an Accursed and another of a serpent—on the body of a mammoth-sized centipede, it stank of piss and radiated a level of heat that left Loki feeling woozy.

At least it didn't _actually_ breathe fire.

They'd been fighting it for almost an hour, with little progress. The thing's heads kept healing themselves, which left Barnes increasingly agitated. Loki didn't quite understand why. Yes, the thing looked like a Hydra, if you squinted, but Barnes's Hydra had been composed of men, not monsters. 

The monster was getting too close. Loki hung back a moment to summon a fresh new wave of magic and knives. Unfortunately, Barnes did not seem to realize they were taking such a long pause. He charged again, with swords he had never learned how to use and had picked up off the oddly entwined skeletons of long-defeated warriors. The thing was ready for him. It whisked its tail around its body and, before you could say 'Svartaflheim', had wrapped Barnes in a tight, snakelike, coil. It leaned its grotesque Accursed head down and opened its mouth wide. 

"Loki, now!" Barnes gasped as he gazed calmly into its fangs.

" _This_ was your plan?" Loki grumbled, but he understood the opening that Barnes had created, and used it to throw fifty knives into the thing's now exposed mouth and eyes and heart, which it had so far kept out of reach, as well as at the pivotal spot Loki had missed before. All this allowed Barnes to finish it off with a twisting, hari kari-style evisceration of its gut.

The thing squeezed harder in its death convulsions, so hard that the usually implacable Barnes actually whimpered in agony. It also exhaled one last, disgusting puff of hot air right into Barnes's face before imploding into a bloody, fleshy mess.

In the distance from where they'd been watching the battle, the local inhabitants cheered weakly, but Loki could barely hear them over the din of his own disgust.

"Blech," he said to himself as he picked bits of monster off his armor. "Barnes, next time I'll have to insist that you warn me of your plans first, so that I have time to talk you into a better one." When a sarcastic response failed to come in the normal amount of time, Loki looked up. "Barnes?"

Barnes had fallen and was now scrabbling weakly on the ground. He'd been at the very epicenter of the implosion, and now lay covered in slippery, stinking innards. However, even beyond this, through the gore, he looked rather worse for wear. Perhaps the thing had squeezed him even harder than Loki had noticed.

"Barnes, are you all right?" And it said something about how much he had come to foolishly care for this maddening, mulish man that Loki ran in a panic to his side, barely noticing the muck he had to wade through to get there. And not a second too soon, because Barnes collapsed in Loki's arms as soon as he touched him.

"I'll be all right," Barnes said, but he was the idiotic, self-sacrificing type who'd shrugged off too many of entirely _not_ 'all right' traumas in the past. Such a statement meant nothing, coming from him.

The locals, who had hidden on the other side of the walls during the fight, now began to pop their heads up to view and cheer the victors. Loki waved to signal that the monster was dead, but he worried about Barnes. With a few curt shouts, he had them scrambling down the cliff face with supplies to help them.

"Never been carried on a litter before," Barnes laughed weakly as they hoisted a cot-like structure over their heads with him on it. "I feel like a prince, like you. That's what it's called, right? A litter?"

"Indeed," Loki said through gritted teeth. He didn't add that he'd never been carried on one either. He little wanted to dispel the romantic notion Barnes had of him as a pampered fairytale prince. 

Especially since it was the only way in which Barnes seemed to think of him romantically.

* * *

For all that Loki had written this off as a backward planet with no culture, the feast that was prepared for them in gratitude surprised him with its tastiness, and the region's capital city, to which they were taken in triumph, boasted a celebration hall worthy of at least a middlingly developed place. 

After that moment of weakness, which Loki attributed to the thing's tail having squeezed so hard, Barnes seemed to have recovered, at least somewhat. The locals had managed to clean most of the gore off Barnes's face and hands and clothes, and had treated the smell with an interesting solution Loki had never seen. However, lacking anything else to wear, Barnes remained in the same garments. He had regained full range of motion, but seemed even quieter than usual, pulled into himself, and awkward in his own skin. Loki couldn't make much of it, but decided not to worry. Barnes was the sort who would share his thoughts if and when he deemed it time, and not a moment before.

The lavish—and delightful—obsequiousness of the ceremonial thanks giving portion of the evening had ended, and the locals had turned much of their attention back to one another. Normally, this would have irritated Loki, but tonight, as on many unexpectedly pleasant nights, he had Barnes to pay attention to him.

Ignoring the festival around them, they settled into their usual post-battle repartee, with Barnes recounting all the interesting magic Loki had performed, and Loki creating even more magic by replaying, via illusion, all the ridiculous faces Barnes had pulled during the fight. They had a wonderfully apt word for these faces in English, Loki had learned: 'dopey'.

"But next time," Loki admonished as he finished scooping his dessert from the bowl and into his mouth with long, gooey fingers, "try not to almost get squeezed into bits. It would inconvenience me greatly to lose you."

Barnes was staring, somewhat oddly, at Loki's fingers as they dipped into and out of his mouth. His jaw hung a little askew, and Loki filed the expression away for a later montage of dopiness. Barnes shifted awkwardly in his chair, crossing one leg over the other in a way he never did, showing off the strength of his thighs in the process. He wobbled as if drunk, but there was nothing here with the strength to intoxicate him. 

"It worked, though," Barnes said. "And I knew you'd come through."

"When do I not?"

Barnes gulped, and neither his timing nor his confidence were up to normal standards when he replied, "I can think of a few times." 

He seemed too focused on Loki's mouth and hands to play their habitual little game.

"Are you truly all right, Barnes?" Loki asked with rare, real concern.

"Did you mean it?"

"Mean what?" Loki asked.

"That you'd be upset if I got killed."

"I said 'inconvenienced'."

"What you say isn't usually what you mean," Barnes pointed out. He drew closer, a little too close to Loki's face. "You gotta read between the lines. Lines," he finished weakly, as he watched Loki swallow. "You like me, I know you do."

Norns, but Barnes was attractive like this. Hair tangled, smile wide and soft, Asgardian-smithed armor dirtied from the battle, smelling of sweat and the meaty tang of his own blood, breath redolent of liquor. On Asgard, Loki's preference for keeping himself in a presentable state, even if he'd needed a glamor to do so, had led the others to accuse him of prissier tastes. Little did any of them know that in this his proclivities were even more Asgardian than all those true Aesir. Battle-weary, battle-invigorated, and battle-bedraggled aroused him like nothing else. And there was something about Barnes as he calmly looked something awful in the eye and then destroyed it with a deliciously reluctant single-mindedness, that made Loki's guilty cock stir at inopportune times. 

Loki intended to ignore this odd mood of Barnes's, as he'd ignored every other moment when his lust threatened to bubble up and beyond his control. However, tonight, Barnes turned his chair towards Loki's, scraping with a screech that went unheard in the middle of the fireworks that the locals had begun to set off, and placed his metal hand on Loki's knee. 

Loki stared at the dangerous appendage, and then up into Barnes's face, then back down to his thigh, which Barnes had begun to stroke with his thumb, then up at Barnes's lips, pink tongue slipping wetly out.

"Barnes?"

"You do, don't you?" Barnes asked again, insistent this time. "Like me, I mean."

"Of course, I…" Loki swallowed the words. He'd be damned if he exposed himself before finding out exactly what was going on. "We jog along rather well, you and I."

Barnes laughed, looking even wilder than he had before. It wasn't one of his normal laughs—neither the frowning, bitter one nor the toothy, eyebrow crinkling one, nor even the full-bodied, head thrown back one that had become Loki's favorite to elicit. This smile was shaky and desperate and unsure of its own mirth. "I guess that's the best I'm gonna get."

And then he kissed Loki, practically toppling them both over in his eagerness. Although his chair wobbled, Loki froze, letting Barnes suction wetly along his face. 

"Barnes," he said as evenly as he could as soon as Barnes's lips moved to nibble at his ear. "What are you doing?"

In answer, Barnes grabbed Loki's flexed left hand and guided it to his groin so that Loki could feel exactly how large and how hard he already was, just from this… this _awful_ kissing.

"Please, Loki. I need… I need… Please."

This could not have been more sudden, but, Loki decided, he _had_ outdone himself with the sparkling air particles. Perhaps that was all he'd needed all this time to push Barnes's admiration into something more. And, well, after five years, perhaps it shouldn't really be considered _that_ sudden.

Loki had never been one to let an ill-advised opportunity pass him by, and he wasn't about to start now. He stroked a firm outline around where Barnes's cock pressed flat within his trousers, eliciting a gratified moan that he would certainly need to hear again.

"Yes, but not here."

"Anywhere," Barnes said, refusing to let Loki pull his hand away. Feeling that equal opposing strength exerted on his arm made Loki's cock begin to harden in a way that the kissing had not. It was only by using his other hand to cradle Barnes's head and direct the kiss with more finesse that he was able to distract him enough to extricate himself from the assault and from his chair. 

Barnes groaned miserably when Loki stood and walked to a nearby table of revelers. "My friend and I are worn out after the battle. Is there anywhere we might retire for the night?"

One of the purple humanoids gestured vaguely at the mezzanine balcony above them. "All the rooms upstairs are at your disposal, as is everything on our planet, in thanks for the service you have rendered us."

Loki thanked it somewhat awkwardly, given that Barnes had followed him and already plastered himself on Loki's back and wrapped his arm around Loki's waist. In another moment, his hand would creep underneath Loki's tunic, right here, in public.

"Five years of nothing and now…" Loki marveled as he led his amorous friend upstairs.

The parts of Barnes's eyes that were _not_ taken up with lust-blown and black pupils were wide and bright, like the sky in one of those galaxies where night was light and the stars sparkled against a grey-blue backdrop instead of an inky one. His normally pale skin had bronzed into delicious tan on their previous mission to a very sunny planet; tonight, it seemed almost to glow golden, like a Sovereign.

"Want you," he murmured, alternating between kissing Loki's palm, sucking his fingers, and wantonly pressing the wet digits against his trousers. "Want you so bad, you have no idea."

Loki felt his cheeks grow warm at the sentiment. How could they not, with the object of his desire so overwhelmingly desirous for _him_ that he could barely string the words together? Whatever had gotten into Barnes, Loki thought, he wasn't going to complain. 

Barnes was wriggling out of his clothes before Loki had even properly inspected the first room he peeked into, before he'd located the source of light, before he'd even ascertained whether there was a bed. There wasn't, it turned out. Merely a few soft pallets spread on the floor in a corner, covering an area much larger than a bed, but with much less cushioning. 

But Loki barely had time to care because when he turned back around, Barnes was standing there, chest bare, arm gleaming, trousers pulled down to his calves, stroking his very hard, very thick cock. 

"I don't need to get my boots off," he whined, as though trying to convince himself that it wasn't worth the effort. In answer, he tripped over his feet and landed sideways into the pile of pallets, hand never leaving his cock.

Barnes was the most stolid, sure-footed, well-balanced person Loki had ever met. Under normal circumstances, this clumsiness would have set alarm bells ringing in Loki's mind, but the gratification of being wanted so urgently that his partner couldn't even be arsed to disrobe properly went straight to his head. He threw himself down beside Barnes and wrapped his fingers around the length that was happily proffered to him.

"Yes, god, good," Barnes groaned, in more ecstasy than Loki had ever rendered someone from a simple hand job. 

He outright howled when Loki leaned over and licked a stripe up his almost too-hard, too-warm cock. 

"Was that not to your liking?" Loki asked, because the noise could have equally been one of pleasure or displeasure.

"Don't stop. Please. Don't stop." Barnes, more selfish and demanding than in Loki's fantasies, tangled his metal fingers in Loki's hair and tugged him back down onto his cock. He practically rode Loki's face, taking his pleasure in a rough way that left Loki close to gagging.

Whenever he'd allowed himself to fantasize about Barnes, Loki had imagined—and spent the past couple of years longing for—fucking in keeping with the focused, dedicated, hyper-competent demeanor with which Barnes approached everything. Perhaps with a little incongruous gentleness and laughter thrown in, as those also counted among the hallmarks of Barnes's personality. 

But this… this frantic, out of control, unhinged with desire for Loki… It wasn't what he'd had in mind, but he was hardly going to refuse it.

Barnes came surprisingly quickly, faster than Loki would have expected, spilling copious amounts down Loki's willing yet already sore throat. Loki pulled back to catch his breath, but was denied that respite when Barnes immediately rolled on top of him and begin licking his face again.

Honestly, the man was a _dreadful_ kisser. Loki took control again, steadying them both until Barnes calmed down enough to at least place his lips in the right place. He scooted closer so that Barnes's bare chest pressed against Loki's fully covered one, and was surprised to find Barnes still hard and poking at him.

"More, please," Barnes begged, sounding hoarse. But at least he groped in the middling light for Loki instead of seeking only his own pleasure again. "You're wearing too many clothes. Why are you wearing so many clothes?"

Loki didn't say that it was partly because the sheer magnificence of Barnes's body—less obscene and therefore more delectably real than Thor's—left him a bit shy, and partly because he'd hoped to be unwrapped like a gift and marveled at despite his shortcomings. Barnes's intense ardor had momentarily led him to hope this might happen. But Barnes, who still hadn't managed to get his boots and trousers off, now seemed too agitated to handle the kinds of fastenings required to disrobe Loki. So, Loki did it himself, valiantly ignoring Barnes's pleas to suck him, fuck him, kiss him, ride him, and all manner of filth until his armor in addition to the rest of Barnes's trappings were off and thrown to the side. 

As soon as they were nude, Barnes spread his legs. "Think I need it inside. I'm so hot, Loki." 

"You aren't usually so egotistical, Barnes," Loki joked, to hide how taken aback he was by this complete lack of inhibition, but pleased all the same.

"Call me Bucky. If we're gonna do this, you should call me by my real name."

"Barnes _is_ your real name."

"Loki, please," Barnes said, and Loki didn't know if he was begging to be taken seriously or begging to be touched again. 

Given that he immediately started fingering himself open, Loki decided it was both.

"Let me do that. I can slick the way with magic."

And if Barnes had ever loved Loki's magic, he loved it treble right at that moment, because he spread his legs invitingly wide and gave Loki his most irresistible puppy eyes. 

"I really like you, too," Barnes blurted out, in response to a conversation that now seemed like a lifetime ago, although it had only been a few minutes. He sounded like he was forcing something, struggling. As he said it, his eyes stopped looking quite so blown, just for a second, before being subsumed by his overall frenzied manner once more. 

Loki didn't know what to make of that. On the one hand, he did appreciate that glimpse of a more normal-seeming Barnes, but on the other, such an underwhelming declaration paled in comparison to his much more intoxicating physical and verbal expressions of lust. And yes, he had known, for quite some time, that Barnes 'liked' him. As a friend, as a partner, as a sorcerer. All that was nice, but what he wanted tonight, and had wanted for some time, was something more. 

So, instead of responding, he magicked oil for his fingers, ignored his throbbing erection, and pressed inside Barnes. The noise Barnes made eclipsed anything from Loki's many fantasies and also… There was something about the way he keened and squirmed and shouted in shock.

"Is this your first time being breached?" Loki asked softly.

Barnes was squirming too hard to quite tell, but Loki felt almost certain that he nodded. 

"Not even with the dearly departed Captain?" Loki asked, finally voicing a question and a fear over which he'd long brooded.

"Steve?" Barnes shook his head so vociferously that it might have fallen off, and pulled a face. "Gross. Like wanting my brother. You ever want Thor like that?" 

"Decidedly not."

"Good to know. Gotta say, I always wondered." Barnes angled his hips suddenly so that Loki's fingers slipped in deeper. "Now fuck me before I die. Please, Loki."

Loki was so happy about this revelation that he leaned over and kissed Barnes again. All these years he'd spent absolutely convinced that he had no chance, because Barnes and Rogers had so clearly been lovers, and there was no way that someone who had ever wanted Rogers could ever want Loki. It had driven him into a repressed despair. And now to find out that they had never been lovers at all, had never even wanted to. He was so pleased that he forgot to take it slowly when he felt his cock nudge conveniently against Barnes's hole. He pushed in, all the way, sucking the gasp from Barnes's mouth into his own.

"I'm sorry," Loki, who _never_ apologized, apologized.

But Barnes didn't seem to mind. He rolled Loki over with that extraordinary strength of his and began riding Loki like a man who had been getting fucked every day for years, like a man out of his mind with need. He came messily all over himself before Loki had even found a rhythm. He came again, surprisingly, just as Loki was beginning to feel his own build-up. He came again, now worryingly, when he felt Loki empty into him.

And in between, he hadn't grown any less hard.

"More, please, more," Barnes pleaded. 

"I'm afraid I'll need just a minute," Loki said slowly, wonderingly, because even though he knew Barnes was more than human, something about all this had begun to take an odd shape. 

"Then let me fuck you. Please. I'm too hot. Can't stop. I need more," Barnes babbled, to Loki's increasing alarm.

"All right," Loki conceded after a lingering, and still terrible, kiss. He certainly didn't mind the idea of Barnes fucking him, but he also wanted to continue observing him. "One moment, though."

He swatted Barnes away long enough to get up and make the lights brighter. Barnes, who usually turned on every light in a room and who took every opportunity to stand in the sunshine, uncharacteristically grumbled at the increased brightness. And it was now that Loki saw everything that had so interested him in a new light. 

Barnes's over-large pupils, the sparkles in his eyes, the golden tint, the heat of his skin. What had seemed beautiful back in the semi-dark grand hall had exacerbated into something sickly and unnatural. The gratifyingly desperate ardor now seemed terribly out of character.

Some of the confusingly metaphorical aspects of the stories Frigga had told him and Thor about the monsters of this realm now made more sense. The 'fever' felt by the warriors. The 'unbridled' celebrations after killing the things. The odd smell of the muck that it had imploded into, and which had covered Barnes.

No wonder the man seemed out of his mind with lust. It was because he _was_.

He didn't want Loki at all. Not truly. 

Just to underscore that realization, Barnes began muttering, "I don't understand. I hate this. I hate this so much." 

Loki knew enough of this kind of sickness to know what would happen if he didn't give Barnes what he needed. These compounds, especially when absorbed through the nose and skin in the quantities that Barnes must have absorbed them, needed to be fed with what they demanded. And what Barnes demanded right now was sex. 

Loki lay on his stomach and slicked himself with a thought. In a moment, Barnes was on him, in him, whispering sweet nothings about how good Loki felt, about how badly he'd wanted it. All of it hurt more than insults, knowing that it meant nothing. Loki endured it all, letting Barnes take him and spend in him, over and over, until he practically wept with the effort of coming. Loki's arse ached, and he stopped responding, stopped trying to corral Barnes's uncoordinated attempts at kissing. 

Eventually, Barnes grew soft, slipped out of him, and passed out. 

Relieved, Loki dressed them both. He poured some water into Barnes's mouth and left a glass nearby. He knew that this sort of sickness, once purged through intercourse, would require at least forty-eight hours of pure sleep before it was fully gone. 

He explained to his hosts that his companion was ill and needed to sleep undisturbed until he emerged from the room. He also asked for both a spaceship and a radio, which they gave him almost immediately.

As he flew away, he radioed Natasha back at the Earth base.

"Everything okay?" she asked.

"Mission accomplished. However, I would ask that you send someone here to tend to Barnes."

Natasha's voice was tight as she asked, "What happened?"

"He fell ill. He'll be fine in a few days. But someone will need to pick him up."

"What about you? Aren't you with him?"

"I'm on my way to meet Danvers." Loki took a deep breath and mostly managed to keep his voice steady even as his face crumpled in the safety of his solitude. "I think it would be best if I worked with someone else going forward."

* * *

**_Six Months Later_ **

It was long, monotonous space journeys like these when Loki most regretted the loss of the Tesseract. It had taken him and Nebula weeks to reach Earth's solar system, even in the fastest ship he'd ever had the pleasure to fly (read: steal). 

Nebula, whom no one would ever recruit as a diplomat, bluntly cut through Loki's endless brooding to ask, "When we arrive, will you encounter that which you have been avoiding?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You lie."

"You do realize that is what I am known for?" Loki asked irritably. 

"I had thought a master of lies might possess the ability to lie convincingly to others without first having to lie to himself."

Nebula's penchant for voicing uncomfortable truths such as these were what made them a less than ideal team. She and the other Avengers liked the idea of cutting Loki loose to roam unmonitored and unbusied just as little as he liked losing the protection afforded him by association with an intergalactic group of heroes. Therefore, it had come as little surprise when she radioed the next day to tell him that Nebula would meet him on a nearby planet to begin a new mission. Ever since Tony had retired, she'd been a similarly misfit member of the group; the humans found her cold and blue and off-puttingly robotic. Which only made sense, since she was all of these things. But none of that bothered Loki. As a citizen of the larger universe, he and Nebula had more shared experienced than with any of the others. Working with her had been fine so far, though he'd heard Natasha giving Nebula some feedback to the effect that she wasn't quite as good at managing Loki as Barnes had been, whatever that meant. 

(Loki hated that he knew _exactly_ what it meant.)

Their ship landed smoothly in the field near the complex, definitely the most impressive of the ships lined up near the entrance to the Avengers base. Nebula immediately went to greet Stark, leaving Loki to walk in alone. He knew they had arrived early, and so went up to the observatory, as he always did, to look at the bland view and enjoy some quiet before the meeting.

Loki had not been back to Earth in almost a year. He had never enjoyed spending time at the Avengers base, which was simultaneously devoid of character and yet full of characters who disliked him. It had not been his choice to return today, but Natasha had put out a red alert to select agents, coded with something about a possibility of bringing back those who were lost. Something about time. 

Loki boasted few heroic aspirations, but not even he could turn his back on participating in something that might restore the people who had been lost due in part to his stupid desire for the Tesseract. Memories and regrets about Thor, so successfully repressed most of the time, now came rushing back with the cloying, soon-to-be-bitter sweetness of hope. 

So, for the first time months, his brooding focused on matters other than Barnes, even though today was the first time since that day when it was likely they might meet. They hadn't spoken at all, not even during the check-ins that Rocket had set up. Loki had always sat them out, but listened closely enough to tell that Barnes was also sitting them out. However, he'd heard Rocket gloating recently about how close he had gotten in recent weeks in his quest to steal the vibranium arm. 

Therefore, it came as something of a surprise when someone gently pushed his foot out of the way of a neighboring chair. Loki looked up sharply, annoyed at having his thoughts and privacy interrupted, annoyed at being shoved. Barnes sat down in the newly accessible chair and didn't look at Loki at all. 

Loki had been prepared to merely nod and pass if, on the off-chance, Barnes were to attend this meeting, but he refused to be the one ignored. 

"What are you doing here? I did not know you possessed skills relevant to this effort," he eventually said, even though he didn't quite know what the skills the effort required; Natasha had sketched but the haziest outline in her missive.

"They need people capable of handling the stones without disintegrating, and I'm one of the few we have." Barnes flexed his metal hand in a way that brought back a variety of arousing memories that Loki swallowed down. "And there's no way I'm sitting out on something that might bring Steve and Shuri and everyone else back. What are you doing here?"

"Much the same."

Barnes didn't so much as nod in response. He simply stared blankly out the window. As the seconds pounded by, Loki grew more and more infuriated. He meant to keep his cool, keep his distance, keep his calibrated calm, but he couldn't help trying to needle Barnes into engagement. 

"Have you been with Nova Corps this whole time?"

Barnes's still-kissable lips quirked ever so slightly at Loki's shifting and blurted question. "Nah, I've been traveling around with Sif."

"Sif?! I thought she was dead."

"She's been keeping various Skrull refugee camps safe. That's what you sent her off Asgard to do, after all. Luckily for her."

Loki squirmed at the thought of Barnes spending so much time with someone who had known him his whole life, and who might be able to tell less than flattering stories about him. 

As though reading his mind, Barnes continued, "Sif and I had lots of time to chat. About lots of things. Life back on Asgard, fun times with dipshit princes, 'get help'…" A beat, and then Barnes finally, _finally_ , turned to Loki with a half-smile, half grimace. "Bet you're wishing right about now that you hadn't ditched me."

"You were unwell, and—"

"And when I was better, Natasha told me you'd already headed off with Nebula. It didn't take a genius to figure out you'd asked for a change."

Loki sat up straight and looked off to the side distance. "I thought it best, for both of us."

"I know that wasn't how either of us wanted that night to go, but—"

"Don't apologize. Assisting you was preferable to watching you die," Loki said as evenly as he could.

"Wow," Barnes whispered, mostly to himself. "Ringing endorsement there."

"You're the one who said, and I quote, 'I hate this, I hate this so much', in the middle of sex," Loki said, failing to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

Barnes must have heard it, because he looked incredulously at Loki. "You're joking."

"What?"

" _That's_ what set you off? Unbelievable. It didn't occur to you that what I hated was not having control of my own body? At feeling like something else was at the wheel? You didn't think that might be a problem, for me even more than most people?"

No, it hadn't, but Loki now felt even more churlish for having failed to see this, even after months of brooding, than he'd felt at having taken advantage. 

Barnes merely shook his head. "You're a piece of work," he said, but it sounded rather fond. "Wish you hadn't asked Natasha to send you six star systems away. We could have sorted this out sooner."

"There's nothing to sort." 

"Sure there is. It took me awhile, because you weren't around for me to read it all flitting across your face, but I got there. First I was hurt, thinking, god, how bad it must have been for you, if the first thing you did was dump me and then ask never to work with me again. I was thinking I must have repulsed you, or you'd seen how I felt, and were disgusted about it. But after a few weeks, I thought, wait, no. Loki wouldn't run from that. He'd have stuck to my side closer than ever and teased me about it forever."

Loki had to nod, because there was truth in his words. He was too busy thinking of all the barbs he might have strewn and pranks he might have played in such a scenario to immediately understand the full thrust of what Barnes was saying. 

"But you didn't," Barnes continued. "Which meant you were _embarrassed_. And there's only one reason you'd feel embarrassed. Because you didn't realize what was going on, at least at first. Because you wanted it as badly as I did."

"You didn't want it at all."

"Sure I did. Before. For ages before. Maybe not right after, because I was so mad. But once I figured it out, I stopped being as mad, and went back to wanting…" He lowered his voice. "I still do."

Loki stared at him, not knowing what to think. Thankfully, Barnes didn't leave him enough time to say the wrong thing, for he leaned in and kissed him. The kind of focused, dedicated, hyper-competent kiss that Loki had longed for about for years. The kind that sent tingles to his toes.

"You've improved," Loki stammered once they stopped. 

"Nah," Barnes replied. "That's how I usually do it. That night, uh, wasn't my best showing. Thanks, by the way."

"What for?"

"If it had to be anyone, I'd have wanted it to be you. Even though I have a feeling you'll still tease the shit out of me about it. God, I was terrible in bed, wasn't I?"

"Absolutely atrocious."

"Wanna try again? After we get them all back? I'll make it up to you."

Loki nodded. "I'll hold you to that. I'll hold you to it so firmly that I insist on partnering with you on any assignments they give us."

Barnes kissed him again, this time as a promise. "Let's go downstairs, then. The faster we get them back, the faster we can get back to this."


End file.
